Aaron Broussard, Ex-wife, Attorney Indicted on Payroll Fraud Charges!

My fabulous wife has a relationship with the Broussards of Jefferson Parish via Children’s Hospital. A Broussard relation needed services from Children’s, and my wife was the point employee for the services provided.

How the mighty of Jefferson Parish have fallen!! Aaron Broussard has been around in Jefferson Parish for decades. A federal grand jury today indicted former Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard on charges of manipulating the parish payroll to boost his ex-wife’s salary. Also charged were Karen Parker, who divorced Broussard in October 2009, and former Parish Attorney Tom Wilkinson as part of a sweeping, two-year investigation of the parish government under Broussard’s watch. Here’s the 25 page indictment.

Aaron Broussard looking very unhappy

The charges are wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and to steal money from an agency receiving federal money.

The defendants are the first parish employees ensnared in the Justice Department’s exhaustive look into the Broussard administration. The investigation began in the fall of 2009 after The Times-Picayune and the Metropolitan Crime Commission disclosed that Broussard’s top administrator, Tim Whitmer, owned a private insurance agency earning commissions off policies at the publicly owned West Jefferson Medical Center. His firm, Lagniappe Industries, also was selling policies to parish contractors.

The investigation grew from there. Broussard admitted to doing $5,000 of legal work for Lagniappe, and Wilkinson said he had bought insurance policies through the firm

Questions about Parker’s pay arose with news media disclosures that she was being paid $65,000 a year as a paralegal supervisor under Wilkinson, despite not having a required license. Instead, parish officials said she was working for another department processing employee identification cards — a job for which she should have made $22,000 less — according to a 2010 report by the state legislative auditor.

Broussard and Wilkinson also erased a two-month gap in Parker’s employment history, letting her collect more than $45,000 in longevity pay that she otherwise would have lost.